Here is a link to a page where you can download mp3s and sheet music of the entire Genevan Psalter. All 150 psalms are in the collection, and the Decalogue, Magnificat (Mary’s song), and Nunc Dimittis (Simeon’s song) are included as well. Incidentally, the Anglo-Genevan Psalter is being updated, and you can find information on that project here. I don’t agree with the position of some more traditional Reformed folks that only a cappella psalms should be sung in church, but the Genevan hymns are beautiful none the less. Enjoy!
Thanks Stan. One of the Genevan hymns that I wish was included is I Greet Thee Who My Sure Redeemer Art. It is a beautiful hymn, attributed to John Calvin, although this is not certain. There is a modern rewrite of it by an artist named Brian Moss on his album titled Not What My Hands Have Done, which is available on iTunes. He is also writing new songs for each Psalm. I hope these hymns encourage you and build you up in your worship to the Lord.
I don’t agree with the position of some more traditional Reformed folks that only a cappella psalms should be sung in church…
I am beginning to question my statement above. I believe that my assumed categories of “traditional” and “contemporary” are flawed. Here is a blog post by Kevin DeYoung about singing Psalms in worship.
Thanks Nate for the link to the blog which makes excellent points.
The author referred to the idolatry of the high places in the OT.
I think a lot of what is called contemporary Christian music is really a form of idolatry in the way the performers are adulated.
Somehow, I wonder whether churches would be playing rock music, if they knew that Christ would be a visitor on a particular day.
Rock music by its very nature makes people want to dance, and is quite fleshly oriented.
Keep the rock music where it belongs--in dance halls and concert arenas. I have no objection to good secular rock music and still listen to it often. But music for worship should not resemble the music associated with secular activities.
However, there are some excellent examples of more contemporary music that does have a rock beat which are very inspiring.
The Getty’s are good examples with songs such as “In Christ Alone”
It is tough to be too dogmatic, but so much of CCM today is just “junk” with shallow lyrics.
Thanks Nate for the link to the blog which makes excellent points.
The author referred to the idolatry of the high places in the OT.
I think a lot of what is called contemporary Christian music is really a form of idolatry in the way the performers are adulated.
Somehow, I wonder whether churches would be playing rock music, if they knew that Christ would be a visitor on a particular day.
Rock music by its very nature makes people want to dance, and is quite fleshly oriented.
Keep the rock music where it belongs--in dance halls and concert arenas. I have no objection to good secular rock music and still listen to it often. But music for worship should not resemble the music associated with secular activities.
However, there are some excellent examples of more contemporary music that does have a rock beat which are very inspiring.
The Getty’s are good examples with songs such as “In Christ Alone”
It is tough to be too dogmatic, but so much of CCM today is just “junk” with shallow lyrics.
Stan
Stan,
Do you have Scripture to back up any of these things you are saying? I don’t know where you are getting these ideas from, but it sounds pretty arbitrary to me.
The Reformed churches have always confessed the regulative principle of worship (RPW). By this we mean that we only do in worship what God has commanded us to do. It is basically the logical conclusion of the second commandment and of confessing sola scriptura. Here is how the confessions and catechisms put it:
Belgic Confession
Article 7 (in part)
For since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large, it is unlawful for anyone, though an apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures.
Article 32 (in part)
Therefore we reject all human innovations and all laws imposed upon us, in our worship of God, which bind and force our consciences in any way.
Heidelberg Catechism
Q 96: What does God require in the second commandment?
A: That we in no wise make any image of God, nor worship Him in any other way than He has commanded us in His Word.
Westminster Confession
21.1: But the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.
To get an idea of the Biblical basis for the RPW, check out the first couple chapters of John Girardeau’s book. For more on this see Recovering the Reformed Confession chapter 7 by R. Scott Clark. You could also check out the Heidelblog, search for “reforming worship,” and read through some of the discussions. Many of the first questions to pop into our heads when we hear about this have been answered many times in many places, so I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel here. Suffice it to say though that it is not about “traditional” or “conservative” vs. “contemporary.” Far from it. It is about protecting the consciences of the people of God by, for instance, not forcing them to sing In the Garden since the teaching of it is completely unbiblical.
Thanks for your response. I still would like to hear from Stan, though, about his specific points he made in his post.
Soli Deo Gloria - 25 April 2010 09:55 PM
Hey Jeremy,
The Reformed churches have always confessed the regulative principle of worship (RPW). By this we mean that we only do in worship what God has commanded us to do. It is basically the logical conclusion of the second commandment and of confessing sola scriptura.
Well, if that’s the case, then how many Reformed churches obey the following Scriptures about worshipping God?:
(All passages are from the NASB.)
2 Samuel 6:5
Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals.
1 Chronicles 13:8
David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, even with songs and with lyres, harps, tambourines, cymbals and with trumpets.
1 Chronicles 15:16
Then David spoke to the chiefs of the Levites to appoint their relatives the singers, with instruments of music, harps, lyres, loud-sounding cymbals, to raise sounds of joy.
2 Chronicles 5
12and all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and kinsmen, clothed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps and lyres, standing east of the altar, and with them one hundred and twenty priests blowing trumpets
13in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the LORD, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the LORD saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud,
14so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God.
2 Chronicles 30:21
The sons of Israel present in Jerusalem celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great joy, and the Levites and the priests praised the LORD day after day with loud instruments to the LORD.
Nehemiah 12:27
Now at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought out the Levites from all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem so that they might celebrate the dedication with gladness, with hymns of thanksgiving and with songs to the accompaniment of cymbals, harps and lyres.
Psalm 7
A Shiggaion[a] of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning Cush, a Benjamite.
a. Psalm 7:1 I.e. Dithyrambic rhythm; or wild passionate song
Psalm 27:6
And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me,And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.
Psalm 33:3
Sing to Him a new song;Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
Psalm 47:1
O clap your hands, all peoples; Shout to God with the voice of joy.
Psalm 63:4
So I will bless You as long as I live;I will lift up my hands in Your name.
Psalm 66
1Shout joyfully to God, all the earth;
2Sing the glory of His name;
Make His praise glorious.
Psalm 71:23
My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to You;And my soul, which You have redeemed.
Psalm 81:1
Sing for joy to God our strength;Shout joyfully to the God of Jacob.
Psalm 95
1O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD,Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving,Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
Psalm 96:1
Sing to the LORD a new song;Sing to the LORD, all the earth.
Psalm 98
1O sing to the LORD a new song,
For He has done wonderful things,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him.
4Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth;
Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.
5Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
With the lyre and the sound of melody.
6With trumpets and the sound of the horn
Shout joyfully before the King, the LORD.
Psalm 100
1Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth.
2Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
Psalm 134:2
Lift up your hands to the sanctuaryAnd bless the LORD.
Psalm 141:2
May my prayer be counted as incense before You;The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering.
Psalm 150:5
Praise Him with loud cymbals;Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
1 Timothy 2:8
Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.
Soli Deo Gloria - 25 April 2010 09:55 PM
Suffice it to say though that it is not about “traditional” or “conservative” vs. “contemporary.” Far from it. It is about protecting the consciences of the people of God by, for instance, not forcing them to sing In the Garden since the teaching of it is completely unbiblical.
Wait a second. How is the teaching of “In the Garden” completely unbiblical?
Did you read the resources I recommended? Like I said, I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel here. All of the things you bring up have been answered by people much more able than me. I will respond to the raising of hands in prayer though. Reformed Christians in Geneva were raising their hands to God in prayer long before Charismatics started doing it in the 20th century. At my home church (PCA) we raise our hands to God like little children reaching to a parent during public prayer. We do it together as a covenant community, with our eyes closed, so that no one is professing to be more spriritual than anyone else.
As for In the Garden, it is completely pietistic (in the radical Anabaptist sense). Just look at the words:
I come to the garden alone…
Where in Scripture are we ever said to be redeemed into our own little private experience of God?
And the voice I hear falling on my ear…
Continuing revelation? Isn’t the canon closed?
And He walks with me, and He talks with me…
Same problems as before. Being redeemed from our sin isn’t about our own private experience with God. We are redeemed into His covenant people (a local church). Same problem with continuing revelation.
And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.
Now my own little private experience with God is of a better quality than anyone else’s private experience ever before in all of history! How is this not arrogant? I’m not more pious than anyone else. My subjective feelings for God are still riddled with sin, and they will be until I’m glorified.
The point I was making was that it is basically ecclesiastical tyranny to force people to sing songs in public worship that go against their conscience. I recommend taking the time to read through those resources.
Nate, me thinks you are reading into the song too much and ignoring the imagery of one’s personal communion with God.
Soli Deo Gloria - 26 April 2010 01:00 AM
I come to the garden alone…
Where in Scripture are we ever said to be redeemed into our own little private experience of God?
This is merely speaking of a person going away into quiet fellowship with God. A garden signifies solitude.
My personal experience whether I choose to go to the wilderness or lock myself up in my room with no interruptions is my experience that has nothing to do with anyone else. This is all this person in the song is saying.
Soli Deo Gloria - 26 April 2010 01:00 AM
And the voice I hear falling on my ear…
Continuing revelation? Isn’t the canon closed?
Has God never spoken to you in the ‘still small voice’? This isn’t some sort of revelation, it is God personally speaking to the person in quiet solitude. This is a personal song, Nate. It is sung from a personal perspective and is meant to be interpreted that way.
Soli Deo Gloria - 26 April 2010 01:00 AM
And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.
Now my own little private experience with God is of a better quality than anyone else’s private experience ever before in all of history! How is this not arrogant? I’m not more pious than anyone else. My subjective feelings for God are still riddled with sin, and they will be until I’m glorified.
Are two experiences ever the same? My walk with God is different than yours. Hence, our fellowship is indeed something ‘no one has ever known’.
Not only historians and sociologists but novelists are writing about the Gnostic character of the soup that we call spirituality in the United States today. In an article in Harper’s, Curtis White describes our situation quite well. When we assert, “This is my belief, says White, we are invoking our right to have our own private conviction, no matter how ridiculous, not only tolerated politically but respected by others.. “It says, I’ve invested a lot of emotional energy in this belief, and in a way I’ve staked the credibility of my life on it. So if you ridicule it, you can expect a fight.’” In this kind of culture, “Yahweh and Baal--my God and yours--stroll arm-in-arm, as if to do so were the model of virtue itself.”
“What we require of belief is not that it make sense but that it be sincere. This is so even for our more secular convictions. . . . Clearly, this is not the spirituality of a centralized orthodoxy. It is a sort of workshop spirituality that you can get with a cereal-box top and five dollars. And yet in our culture, to suggest that such belief is not deserving of respect makes people anxious, an anxiety that expresses itself in the desperate sincerity with which we deliver life’s little lessons. . . . There is an obvious problem with this form of spirituality: it takes place in isolation. Each of us sits at our computer terminal tapping out our convictions. . . . Consequently, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that our truest belief is the credo of heresy itself. It is heresy without an orthodoxy. It is heresy as an orthodoxy.”
When the political freedom of religion has been broadened to the dogma that “everyone is free to believe whatever she likes,” says White, “There is no real shared conviction at all, and hence no church and certainly no community. Strangely, our freedom to believe has achieved the condition that Nietzsche called nihilism, but by a route he never imaged.” While European nihilism just denied God, “American nihilism is something different. Our nihilism is our capacity to believe in everything and anything all at once. It’s all good!”
Combining this view of personal truth with free-market capitalism, even our beliefs become commodities--"content," just as books are now “sales units.”
“Our religious content becomes indistinguishable from our financial content and our entertainment content and our sports content, just as the sections of your local newspaper attest. In short, belief becomes a culture-commodity. We shop among competing options for our belief. Once reduced to the status of a commodity, our anything-goes, do-it-yourself spirituality cannot have very much to say about the more directly nihilistic conviction that we should all be free to do whatever we like as well, each of us pursuing our right to our isolated happiness.”
Like Nietzsche himself, who said that truth is made rather than discovered and was described by Karl Barth as “the man of azure isolation,” Americans just want to be left alone to create their own private Idaho. While evangelicals talk a lot about truth, their witness, worship, and spirituality seem in many ways more like their Mormon, New Age, and liberal nemeses than anything like historical Christianity.
White poignantly concludes his essay:
“We would prefer to be left alone, warmed by our beliefs-that-make-no-sense, whether they are the quotidian platitudes of ordinary Americans, the magical thinking of evangelicals, the mystical thinking of New Age Gnostics, the teary-eyed patriotism of social conservatives, or the perfervid loyalty of the rich to their free-market Mammon. We are thus the congregation of the Church of the Infinitely Fractured, splendidly alone together. And apparently that’s how we like it. Our pluralism of belief says both to ourselves and to others’ “Keep your distance.” And yet isn’t this all strangely familiar? Aren’t these all the false gods that Isaiah and Jeremiah confronted, the cults of the “hot air gods”? The gods that couldn’t scare birds from a cucumber patch/ Belief of every kind and cult, self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement of every degree, all flourish. And yet God is abandoned.”
So the search for the sacred is really another round of American heresy-as-orthodoxy--the flight of the lonely soul from nowhere to nowhere. We are prisoners of our own subjectivity, confined to the tiny cell of our own limited experiences, expectations, and felt needs.
As far back as the early eighteenth century, the French commentator Alexis de Tocqueville observed the distinctly American craving “to escape from imposed systems” and “To seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things, looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward them. . . . So each man is narrowly shut up in himself, and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the world.” Americans do not need books or any other external authorities in order to find the truth, “having found it in themselves.” In his famous Harvard Divinity School address, transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) announced that “whatever hold the public worship held on us is gone or going,” prophesying the day when Americans would recognize that they are “part and parcel of God,” requiring no Mediator or ecclesiastical means of grace. Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” captured the unabashed narcissism of American romanticism that plagues our culture from talk shows to church.
During this same period, the message and methods of American churches also felt the impact of this romantic narcissism. It can be recognize in a host of sermons and hymns from the period, such as C. Austin Miles’s hymn, “In the Garden”:
I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses,
And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.
The focus of such piety is on a personal relationship with Jesus that is individualistic, inward, and immediate. One comes alone and experiences a joy that “none other has ever known.” How can any external orthodoxy tell me I’m wrong? My personal relationship with Jesus is mine. I do not share it with the church. Creeds, confessions, pastors, and teachers--perhaps not even the Bible--can shake my confidence in the unique experiences that I have alone with Jesus.
Michael Horton, Christless Christianity, pages 160-163
Nate, me thinks you are reading into the song too much and ignoring the imagery of one’s personal communion with God.
This is merely speaking of a person going away into quiet fellowship with God. A garden signifies solitude.
My personal experience whether I choose to go to the wilderness or lock myself up in my room with no interruptions is my experience that has nothing to do with anyone else. This is all this person in the song is saying.
Hey Guibox,
Good to hear from you again brother. Your response actually supports what I said about the song being heavily pietistic. Our main and most important fellowship with God is not through our personal quiet time of meditation or what-have-you. Our main and most important fellowship with God is when He dialogues with His people (as His word is read to us in the liturgy) in corporate worship. This is a lot of ground to cover so I’m not expecting you to agree with me on every point here. In corporate worship then, first God Himself invites us into His presence to worship Him and receive His blessing. In Reformed churches this usually happens by the reading of Psalm 124:8, although there are many different texts used. We then respond in praise to God ideally using His word (a psalm or canticle, etc.). Then God proclaims His law to us, which convicts us of our sin and our hopeless misery and helpless condition. We respond in confession of our sin and repentence. Then God proclaims His Gospel to us, and the absolution of our sin (for all who truly trust in Jesus) is assured. We then respond in praise (doxology). Then God speaks to us through the exposition of His word (preaching). Then ideally we receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, which is the visible Gospel. It nourishes our faith and assures us of Christ’s sufficiency to save us from our sins. We respond in praise, and God sends us out into the world with His blessing, usually the Aaronic blessing found in Numbers 6:24-26. What I’ve just described is the main and most important fellowship with God that we have. It is highly ridiculous (and yes, unbiblical) to come into the community of believers and start singing “I come to the garden alone...” Piety is communal. This whole thing called Christianity isn’t about just me and God. God has a vast amount of people that He has redeemed for Himself through His Son. Our piety is worshiping God as a covenant community.
guibox - 26 April 2010 09:24 AM
Has God never spoken to you in the ‘still small voice’? This isn’t some sort of revelation, it is God personally speaking to the person in quiet solitude. This is a personal song, Nate. It is sung from a personal perspective and is meant to be interpreted that way.
Are two experiences ever the same? My walk with God is different than yours. Hence, our fellowship is indeed something ‘no one has ever known’.
No, God doesn’t speak to us in “still small voices.” He speaks to us through His word. Mostly on Sunday morning and evening. There is no such thing as a “second blessing.” All of the promises of God are “Yes and Amen” in Christ. He is our very great reward, not some heightened private goose-bumpy exerience. Now before you say that I’m just a dry cold intellectualist, I’m all for legitimate religious experience. However, what the song describes and what you describe is a quest for illegitimate religious experience (QIRE, coined by Dr. Clark). It’s trying to get a glimpse of Deus in se (God as He is in Himself). This is what Luther called the “theology of glory.” It’s trying to ascend to some private experience of God that nobody else has so that we can put our trust in that and feel really good about how pious we are. Well, sorry, we’re not pious. We’re sinful. That’s why Luther and the rest of the reformers proclaimed a “theology of the cross.” We know God only as He has revealed Himself to us in words we can understand (what Calvin would call “baby language"), and through God incarnate, Jesus Christ (see Hebrews 1:1), who redeemed us from all our sin.
Our main and most important fellowship with God is when He dialogues with His people (as His word is read to us in the liturgy) in corporate worship. Nate
I don’t believe ‘In the Garden’ negates that experience. It is merely talking about the one on one time we NEED to have with God. I for one am tired on the weekends and the last thing I really want to do is go hang out at church rubbing shoulders with kids and people that I encounter every week as a church school teacher.
If one is part of a dysfunctional church or cannot agree with what goes on there, their spiritual experience is not heightened by going to church. Rather, gathering with a group of close friends to mine the word is more spiritually uplifting. Yes, it makes sense and it is healthy to fellowship with like believers in an environment that nutures and shares the word in a liturgical fashion but that this is the only proper way to receive spiritual blessings is not correct and in some cases, not spiritually healthy.
I’m not condemning you because you’re in a difficult situation. I know how tough it can be when you don’t connect well with a Gospel-oriented local church. Gabriel has pretty much the same issue where he is. No like-minded churches for him to attend (at least not the last I heard). I definitely sympathize. I was right there in the same boat. It is draining and soul-starving. The fact remains though that we need the people of God and we need the primary means of grace (Word and sacrament). These are the things that God primarily works through to nourish our faith and build us up. Yes it is great to read Scripture on our own, but remember, that is a fairly recent phenomenon. Yes, it is a good thing, but for about 6000 years now God has worked and still does primarily work through public worship. I’ll pray for you in that situation Guibox. If you ever need to talk to anyone about it, please feel free to email me: nathanielostby at me dot com (mac email addresses are so narcisisstic).
